Vehicle customization has been a fast growing area of interest for many automobile and motorbike enthusiasts. This customization may include the application of stripes of various sizes and colors along desired areas of the vehicle. These stripes are often referred to as pinstripes and have traditionally required a steady hand to apply and paint the pinstripes in a uniform manner.
Recently, the development of adhesive tapes in various colors and sizes has been adapted to take the place of painted pinstripes. Adhesive tape pinstriping offers several advantages over painted pinstripes including ease of application and removal. However, adhesive tape application also requires a skilled hand in order to ensure that the pinstripe is applied in a uniform manner and spacing along the vehicle surfaces.
Certain dispensers have been developed for the application of adhesive tape along various surfaces. The devices are configured to remove the nonadhesive backing as the adhesive tape is deployed and pressed onto a surface.
However, these dispensers suffer many drawbacks that hinder the application of the tape. These dispensers are typically only able to apply tape in one direction which results in awkward positioning or necessitating removal of wheels and panels in order to apply the tape correctly. Also, adhesive tapes are offered in a variety of widths, while these dispensers are only configured to accept tapes in one width size. This results in the need for multiple dispensers to accommodate tapes with various width sizes.
Another drawback is that the dispensers have only one area that can be used as a guide for the placement and positioning of the tape. This guide is configured to contact a portion of the surface to which the tape will be applied, and therefore, functions to guide the motion of the user's hand during application. Since vehicle surfaces vary in shape and size, the sole guide is unable to accommodate every surface resulting in the need to free hand the tape application over a variety of vehicle surfaces. All of the aforementioned disadvantages work together to increase the difficulty in applying uniform and correctly placed adhesive tape pinstriping.
Therefore, a need exists in the field for novel adhesive tape placement devices and apparatuses capable of positioning the application of adhesive tapes in any direction along an adherend which is important for ease of installation depending on whether the installer is left or right handed, and whether obstructions, such as a motorcycle rear wheel swingarm, dictate where the device must be held during installation. A further need exists for an adhesive tape placement device that is able to accommodate tapes of different widths. Finally, there is also a need for the adhesive tape placement device to be configured with a guide that is able to conform to the movement of the device to the various surface shapes frequently encountered on vehicles and the like.